Latest "Blue Ocean Strategy" Posts

Retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, Norm Augustine said that in this global economy, we only have two options… either innovate or evaporate.

The view from here says that many companies are on the path toward evaporation. How many CEOs actually know how to innovate; know a process that would help them innovate and gain sustainable advantage over a long period of time?

Let’s look at what innovation actually is. Webster tells us that “to innovate” means to do something in a new way. It is a simple definition. Most of the time we look at our competitors first, see what they are doing and then try to do something different or better, or prettier, or less costly….in other words…we try to innovate. We ask our customers what they want. The reality is they want more for less. That doesn’t help us do anything but erode our margins.

Unfortunately, most of the time, we have innovated little, our competitors are right behind us and we have received little or no advantage from the action we took. The reality is that most companies don’t take the time to determine if the innovative idea is valuable to our customers. Many customers just shake their heads in disbelief at what we do.

In the 20+ years I have been helping clients formulate strategy and do strategic planning, until now, there has never been a step-by-step method for innovating in such a way that it cannot be duplicated for a very long time. It is very exciting to finally have the tools necessary to help my clients get really innovative, if they want to.

Prior to this posting, the summary/review of the book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne was posted. If you would like a copy emailed, please let me know. You can contact me at info@corporatestrategy.com.